A family member has told me a story of her poor childhood in the thirties in rural Poland. During springs, their family had to steal rotten potatoes from other people's fields and eat weeds to survive. THAT's being poor. What the original article describes sounds more like a anxiety over a risk of falling into poverty, than actual poverty.
I think a more precise term for it might be "financially insecure". You can make things work, it involves a bit of scraping here and there, but you are one bad-luck event (unexpected medical bill, car break-down, etc.) from being unable to pay your regular bills.
Being in such extreme poverty that you need to eat stolen rotten food and weeds is another category entirely.
I don't know - my mom and dad both subsistence farmed in Poland in the 50s through 70s (and largely never stopped). For sure we had to eat weeds (I continue to), and sometimes steal some "not great" potatoes or other vegetables or fruits. Don't knock it till you try though, those "weeds" are often waaaaay more nutritious than the store-bought bullshit, and often much more delicious. Unfortunately, often those 'weeds' were cultivated by a single family (and kept in the family and protected as a secret to surviving the next big one), and now they're nothing but a memory.
